White paper - discovering your customer latent needs

Discovering your customers’ latent needs A practical field guide for applying customer focused innovation methods June 16, 2017

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Theoretical Framework | Content

Content Abstract

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1.Introduction

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2.Theoretical Framework & Methodology

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3.Case Studies

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4.Conclusions

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References

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Abstract Objective The objective of this article is to give the reader:   

Insight into the commonly used customer focused innovation methods in Deloitte’s innovation practice Clear examples and practical steps for applying these customer focused innovation methods through case studies Awareness on the challenges when applying these methods and how to overcome certain barriers

Methodology For this article a literature review was conducted to create an overview of customer focused innovation methods. From this overview, six customer focused innovation methods were chosen, based on their use by Deloitte practioners. For the chosen customer focused innovation methods, case studies were created using the same analysis framework for each of the case studies (situation, goal, process, results, examples and reflection). The case studies were created based on interviews with the practioners involved in applying the method. The overall conclusions are based upon analysis by the author.

Findings Customer focused innovation methods make sure that customer needs are taken as a starting point in innovation, instead of using assumptions about a customer’s needs to develop new products or services. The findings of this article show that customer focused innovation methods have been successfully applied in client settings within Deloitte. Although application has taken place quite a lot, our clients still need some convincing, mainly to reduce their fears of talking to customers in an earlier phase and in explaining the value versus the effort. Digitalisation of our methods can both increase the efficiency as the effectiveness and digital etnography is a great example of this.

Personal note Clemence Mul is a senior consultant in Innovation Growth Services at Monitor Deloitte. Her background as an industrial designer has made her look critically at the way organisations are investigating customer needs and translating these needs into new products and services. From her experience she believes that many times assumptions regarding customer needs are taken as a starting point and customers are only involved when an idea has been formed. This asks for spending more time on discovering customer needs, yet these qualitative research methods for early stages of innovation can be time consuming and do not fit the high pace needed to bring innovations to the market quickly. Therefore Clemence uses this article to highlight some commonly used customer focused innovation methods and how they can be practically used in every day innovation projects. The goal of this article is to help innovation consultants and managers to make easier decisions of what methods to use, how and when.

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1. Introduction Truly understanding customer needs in the first stages an innovation project leads to lower product and service failure levels.

“Start talking to your customers” is the mantra that many innovation consultants nowadays are using to help their clients come up with better innovations. By applying methods like Lean Startup innovation consultants and their clients are forced to get out of the building to speak to their customers in earlier stages of the innovation process. This development towards more customer interaction is very positive and should be encouraged, but what we often see is that this customer interaction only takes place once an idea about the solution (a new product or service) has already been formed. Many innovators, (innovation managers, business developers, service designers, product designers and innovation consultants) believe they have an idea about the customer’s latent needs, problems or dreams and interpret this easily into a solution.

The claim of this article is that by discovering and answering the (latent) need of customers an innovation will truly be successful, since customers know what they want and need and thus guarantee that new products developed accordingly will satisfy the market. This claim has been supported by scholars since early nineties who have also pointed out that “early customer integration minimizes the risk of a later change of construction due to customers’ wishes and so prevents an increase in costs and a reduction of profits caused by a delayed market introduction (Atuahene-Gima, 1995; Bacon & Beckman, 1994; Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Murphy & Kumar, 1996; Murphy & Kumar, 1997).

If this has been known for many years and there a lot of customer focused methods out there, why is customer focused innovation methods still not a common approach for discovering unmet needs? This paper will answer this question through the following three research questions:   

RQ 1: What are customer focused innovation methods?

RQ 2: How can customer focused innovation methods be applied in practical situations?

RQ 3: What can we learn from applying customer focused innovation methods in practice?

The objective of this article is to give the reader:   

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Insight into the commonly used customer focused innovation methods in Deloitte’s innovation practice Clear examples and practical steps for applying these customer focused innovation methods through case studies Awareness on the challenges when applying these methods and how to overcome certain barriers

2. Theoretical Framework & Methodology This chapter defines the theoretical concepts used in this article in paragraph 2.1. The methodology applied in this article is reflected in paragraph 2.2.

2.1.

Theoretical Framework

Innovation An innovation is not an invention. An invention only becomes an innovation if it has passed through production and marketing tasks and is diffused to the market place (Trott, 2002). Thus the discovery should go further from the lab to production and will also add economic value to a company and is diffused to others than the discoverers (Garcia & Calantone, 2001).

Latent customer needs A customer is the end-user of a product or service. This can be existing customers or new customers to an organization. In B2B settings this often means that the focus is not on the buying customer, but on their customer or end-user. Latent needs are the needs of customers that are currently implicit, unarticulated or hidden for the customer and the researcher. The customer is either not aware of the need or is not willing to share this need.

Discover stage Identifying latent customer needs is a typical activity for the first stage of an innovation process (as depicted figure 1). It is an activity that leaves room for divergent thinking to understand the ture problems and needs of a customer.

Figure 1: The four phases of an innovation process: the latent need discovery takes place in the discover stage.

Customer focused innovation In customer driven innovation, there are many approaches that are being used and they can be categorized in three different types (Desouza et al, 2008):

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  

Innovation for the customer (customer focused innovation; innovation is still done by the organization) Innovation with the customer (customer centered innovation; organizations and customers create innovation together) Innovation by the customer (customer driven innovation, the customer is the key player— innovation is done by customers, with minimum involvement by the organization.)

The focus of this paper is on innovation for the customer, in which innovation is still done by the organization with the customer in mind. This is chosen as a starting point because many organizations can still gain a lot from becoming more mature in applying these methods first.

Customer focused innovation methods can serve different purposes. Figure 2 shows an overview of the different methods that can be applied to each serve a purpose from collecting explicit knowledge to latent knowledge. Similar to Schein’s culture triangle where he distinguishes between underlying assumptions, espoused values and artifacts, the assumptions are what shape a culture or need with a customer. Since it is key that we identify explicit and latent needs, this article focuses on providing insights into applying methods for explicit, observable, tacit and latent knowledge.

Figure 2: Categorization of different types of customer focused innovation methods according to Sleeswijk Visser et al., 2005

Table 1 shows the categorization used as a framework in this article. For each type (inquiry, observation and generative) two methods were chosen, based on discussions with Deloitte consultants on the most commonly used and effective methods. The table below provides an overview of the methods, their goals and set-up. The details of the six methods are explained in the next chapter before each case study is presented.

Type Inquiry

Observation

Name Immersive interviewing

Goal Understand daily life activity, pains and gains

Activity Semi-structured interviewing in natural setting

Data collected Notes Photos

Participant diaries

Engages users from afar over a period of time that enables them to document and reflect on experiences in real-time Understand current experience, use of product or service

A diary, collage or photo journal made by the customer to get an overview of experiences Watch a customer perform a certain task in real life Collect notes Gather required data through open sources/launch app

Analog or digital input of pictures, text, videos

Examples Interview people while performing a certain task, such as shopping Food logging Collage of your perfect home

Pictures Videos Notes

Observe people have breakfast with their family

Behavioral data (location, mood, activity)

Analysis of vitality data collected through Fitbit

Customer ethnography Digital ethnography

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Understand customer behavior by observing and analyzing available (social media) data

Generative

Customer journey mapping Context mapping

Map the highs and lows of a customer experience for an existing or new product Grasp the context in which a service or product is used

Ask customer to explain the steps, used tools and experiences Customers visualize and design their context

Map with visuals and notes Visuals, collages

Map the shopping, delivering and unpacking experience Map a desired state of use for a digital platform

Table 1: Customer focused innovation methods in scope for this article (Rosenthal 2006, Sanders 2000, Delft Design Guide 2013)

2.2.

Methodology

The main methodology used in this article is case study analysis. This analysis was performed for the six customer focused innovation methods.

Each case study starts with a paragraph “about the method” which is based on a literature review. This answers research question 1 “What are customer focused innovation methods?”

The six case studies answer research question 2 “How can customer focused innovation methods be applied in practical situations?” The case studies are all based on one hour interviews with Deloitte innovation practitioners from across the globe. Each case study deals with the same elements:     

Situation: the context in which the method was applied in a client engagement Goal: the desired outcome of the customer innovation method Process: the steps taken to apply the method Results: the deliverables created to present the outcomes Reflection: lessons learned by the consultant

Research question 3 “What can we learn from applying customer focused innovation methods in practice?” is answered by analysis of the lessons learned by the author of this article.

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3. Case studies The following chapter provides a six case studies for each of selected customer focused innovation methods. The case studies offer an explanation of the method, followed by a description of the case. Each case study discusses only one method in particular, although in each case it was often a combination of methods to reach the right conclusion regarding latent customer needs.

3.1.

Immersive interviewing

About the method Interviews are face-to-face consultations that can be useful for understanding customer perceptions, opinions, motivation and behavior concerning products, services or to gather information form experts in the field. It is an innovation method that is commonly used, yet there are still ways to learn from a proper interview set-up to truly find latent customer needs. (Delft Design Guide, 2014) At Deloitte the interview technique is called immersive interviews, as these more in-depth and are carried out in the interviewees’ daily work place. This makes sure you understand the context of the customer better and that the interviewee feels more comfortable. The goal of immersive interviews is to dive into the daily life of a customer in order to understand what he or she experiences.

The case Situation A material supplier for photovoltaic panels needed to investigate the customer needs in the downstream part of their value chain. The request to Deloitte was to help them in understanding the need of customers that operate and maintain solar PV farms. As this is a new set of customers they were lacking a full customer understanding, but did have a hunch that data that they were generating in testing their materials might be of high value to these customers.

Goal of the immersive interviewing The goal of the immersive interviewing was to get a better understanding of the unmet (data) needs of these customers (the project developers, operations and maintenance providers and asset managers).

Process Two hour immersive interviews were performed at the customer’s working place. In preparation a topic guide and initial idea of a “day in the life” was prepared by the interviewers. The process followed was: 1. Description of a typical day in the working life by the customer, e.g. “what are the main activities and tools used in these activities?”

2. Mapping the high and lows for these activities (e.g. what causes pain and what is pleasant?)

3. Imaging the dreams for improvements 4. As the interviews were carried out on the working place, the customer also provided insights into the data and tools used (on the computer) and provided a tour of the working place (the solar PV farm).

In between different generative sessions the project team shared their learnings with the customers and adjusted the questions for follow-up sessions accordingly.

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Results In total six immersive interviews were conducted (each with different customer categories) and analyzed. The result was a prioritization of the customer needs regarding the use of data. Figure 3 shows an example of the impression made for each immersive interviews with photos of the site visit.

Figure 4 shows how the customer needs were prioritized after performing six immersive interviews, based on the need and the potential of data usage.

Figure 3: Example of a “day in the life overview� made after an immersive interviews visit

Figure 4: Customer needs prioritization performed after immersive interviews

Reflection The method was quite new to both our client (who was more comfortable with quantitative market analysis). A few things made sure that the client was convinced of the value add of these methods:

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 

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3.2.

Perform the interviews in pairs of consultant and client to teach them how to perform the immersive interviews themselves and experience the value of the insights generated.

Use the customers later in the process to validate. The customers proved to be good contacts for validating assumptions and opportunities. Some of the customers that were interviewed are now launching customers for the newly developed service.

Align the qualitative insights with quantitative insights. Once you will have seen that a certain problem or need exist it is good to put numbers next to this. In this case it meant finding out how much energy loss certain breakdowns would have.

Participants diaries

About the method Participant diaries or diary techniques are a different inquiry technique to find customer needs. A participant diary typically self-report or ‘contemporaneous assessment methods’ in which a customer receives a diary filled with questions regarding a customer’s day and experiences or to collect certain thoughts regarding your research topic. This can be a hard copy diary, but there are actually a lot of different ways you can collect diary entries. Participant diaries will help you get a longer and more regular insight into the experiences of a customer. And since they change the interaction between the research and customers, as it less of an interrogation, the customer has more autonomy to share what they want, as well as where and when (Bolger et al. 2003).

The case Situation The team leaders of a mail delivery company are currently using an app to keep into contact with a hundred mail delivers each. The app is a mean to help the delivery company in reaching their goal of Enterprise mobility, meaning that the team leaders should do their job on the road as much as possible without being too attached to a workstation. The current app was helping, but not used as much as it needed because of lack of user friendliness and technical issues. So the question to Deloitte was how to improve the app in such a way that it supports the team leaders in their daily job, the communication with the delivers and in becoming more mobile employees.

Goal of the participant diaries The goal of the participant diaries is to map the daily activities of a team leader, what the pains and gains were, and how these activities can be supported and improved by using the app.

Process The participant diaries were executed by 9 team leaders. Each of them received an online request every day on four different days to answer a couple of questions. The choice for an online method was because it was more practical, but also more flexible. As the researchers learned from the outcomes, they were still able to adjust the questions for the following days based on these new learnings.

The participant diary each day contained two parts: -

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A recurring set of questions, like: o What did you today, how long did it take you, is this a recurring event? o Did you perform these activities on the road or on location? o What systems did you use?

A new set of questions changing per day to zoom into specific topics like: o Day 1 – Zoom into daily activities and communications: What are your favorite and least favorite activities? What is your biggest frustration? With whom did you have contact and through what means? o Day 2 – Smartphone use: How do you use your phone? What are your favorite apps?

What activities could you do through your phone instead of through your computer?

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Day 3 – Current app use: How do you use the team leaders app now? What do you like and dislike? What are functionalities that you use the most or least? If you could change three things, what would those be?

Day 4 – Future interactions: Ideal day: which activities and interactions would take place? What role does technology fulfill in this ideal workday? What role does the app play?

Simultaneously the researcher did customer observation with three team leaders to actually see for herself how the daily activities were performed and the app was used. This was essential in validating the outcomes and truly understanding what was written in the participants’ diaries.

The analysis of the participant diaries was done in a semi-structured way. The researcher scanned the outcomes and for certain outcomes (like the app functionalities and requests) she did a count on occurrence and mentioned by whom. She also defined the biggest differences between a working day and between team leaders and already proposed initial suggestions for new functionalities in the app.

Results The outcomes led to a user research report, a persona and customer journey. These results were presented in a workshop with the team leaders that participated. In that way the outcomes could be validated. Based on the initial suggestions for new functionalities, the team leaders designed their ideal app. Based on these ideal designs, the new functionalities were prioritized. Figure 5 shows an example of a day in the working life of a team leader during observational study. Figure 6 shows the outcomes of the current and desired functionalities of the team leaders app.

Figure 5: Photos of a daily working life of a team leader from the participant diary

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Figure 6: Outcomes regarding the current and future functionalities of the team leaders app

Reflection  It was a key success factor that the team leaders (customers) were really involved in the process and very happy with the end-results. They had a strong incentive to participate because it affected their daily work and they were viewed upon as the ambassadors by their colleagues.

It was also helpful that they got time in their daily routine to fill out the participant diary.  The validation of the participants’ diaries with the observation in three days of shadowing the team leaders was an absolute must. Otherwise the results are hard to put into perspective and now the researcher truly understood the frustrations and could formulate a storyline for the activities. It was also helpful to get insights into the different persons and therefore different needs.  The design workshop was absolutely needed to ensure that the diaries were well understood.

Without this validation the redesign of the app would have been more difficult, because the workshop was also used to prioritize the ideas for new functionalities.  Next time the consultant would use an app to set up the participant diary study next time, like Contextmapp. As this would increase the user friendliness and make filling out the research questions more fun for the participants.

3.3.

Customer Ethnography

About the method Customer observation is a method used to study what your users do in a certain situation, i.e. how they use a product or experience a service. This method provides a rich understanding of the context of use and the interrelations with other people or products. Being a fly on the wall can be key in the first stages as you may not wish to intervene in the context too much (Abrams, 2000).

The case Situation A social health insurance (SHI) that takes care of the health care of the poorest inhabitants, was struggling with their customer experience. The SHI did not know where to get started on resolving this and asked Deloitte to support them in prioritizing the activities. A lot of customer (patient) complaints were coming in. The complaints were mainly regarding waiting times and insufficient information. The goal of the assignment was that the customer should really notice the change and that there would be less negative publicity in the newspaper. Mapping the current customer experience was the first step in

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understanding the problems in the organization. Several consultancies have tried to resolve the issue, without a result. There was hardly any data on the customers or the complaints available to analyses.

Goal of the customer observation As there was hardly any data available on the customer complaints, the consultant on the assignment decided to start with creating a rich understanding of the customer experience by observing the customers in the waiting room. The goal of the customer observation is to map this process by observing customers and employees in the natural context. As photo or video was not allowed, notes were taken and sketches were made of the situation.

Process In total the consultant performed five observational studies of five whole days. The first study was a pilot as (Abrams 2000) also suggests to see how the method should be set up. The consultant then decided that the set-up of the customer observation should contain three activities: 1. Observational study 2. Customer interviews 3. Employee observation For the observational study (1) the consultant had the following observational topics:   

What customers are in the room?

How do customers arrive in the room, how long are they there?

How are employees helping and interacting with them?

In the observational study it was important not to disturb the customers too much and therefore the consultants sat in the waiting room without talking. After an hour or two observing, the consultants started small conversations (2) with customers. These conversations were performed based on the observational study. Through these interviews the consultants validated why certain events were happening, how they were experienced and whether this was a recurring event. In the customer interviews the consultants also asked what people did previous to arriving and how it felt to get there to get a full understanding of the total customer experience.

The employee observation (3) was performed by standing a whole or half day behind the counter next to the front office employees that had the first interaction with the customers. The consultants noted how tasks were performed and mainly asked why certain tasks were performed.

Results The collected data (sketches and notes) were bundled in:   

Visualization of the waiting room (see figure 7) Personas of the customers (see figure 8) Customer journeys for the different personas (see figure 8)

These results were shared with the employees and had a shock effect on them as they did not see how their part in the customer journey was affecting the customers this much. Only after seeing the total experience, including the travel effort that had to be made, and the hassle for the customers, did they realize how important it was to provide good quality service at the counter. Therefore the main result for the employees was that they empathized more with the customers.

Together with management the consultants decided on the four main customer dissatisfiers and determined how to quickly improve these aspects.

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Figure 7: Situational sketch based on customer etnography

Figure 8: Five personas and the as-is customer journey

Reflection  Being able to perform customer research is a challenge. Many talks with the SHI were needed to persuade them to let the consultants perform the research and why this could not be done by the employees themselves. The consultants felt that an outsider and 1-2 persons should only perform the research as it was key that someone was able to connect the dots between the different observations. Next to that the independency of the employees who were also sometimes the ones that the complaints regarded could not be guaranteed.  The visual representation opened the minds of the employees, especially since these were lower educated and did not care for previous reports by consultants.  The data to substantiate certain findings in occurrence and severity was missing and would have added value in prioritizing the main dissatisfiers on a more objective basis.  In customer experience analysis and design the outcomes will not only affect one department and therefore if an organization wants to work on improving, this should be a collective effort. This is why SHI appointed a customer journey manager who is responsible for detailing the to-be customer journeys and making plans for resolving the four main dissatisfiers across the departments.

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3.4. Digital Ethnography About the method Digital ethnography, also referred to as virtual ethnography or cyberethnography, is the act of understanding customer needs through investigating online and social communities (Murthy 2008, Hine 2000, Robinson & Schulz 2009). Digital ethnography studies online communities and cultures by analyzing online data (such as social network sites, blogs, forums, gaming environments, websites, dating sites, wikis etc.). There are many different forms and the guidelines and methodologies are still quite broad. Commonalities between various methods are that a researcher investigates the messages posted by customers online, their interaction with the organization for which a researcher works and their social networks and interests (Varis 2014).

The case Situation A telephone company asked Deloitte to help them in starting to working with the agile methodology. As a first step in applying an agile methodology is to have a better understanding of the customer, Deloitte was asked to provide this understanding. This customer view (in form of personas) was needed to inform their product development through making user stories.

Goal of the digital ethnography The goal of the digital ethnography was to come up with personas for the current customer portfolio of the telephone company.

Process The digital ethnography method was performed following these steps: 1. Map the online channels for current customer interaction (i.e. the social channels and their usage) and choose one online channel to focus on.

2. Analysis of Facebook profiles: The consultant shifted from an overall view of the customer interaction to specific profiles. Doing this the researcher got a real rich picture of the customers’ lives. Facebook was chosen because this was a good way to capture enough data on the customers that had more interaction with the telephone company. The researchers looked at the highly engaged customers that had a lot of interaction with the telephone company. This focus was chosen, because these tend to be more vocal in word of mouth online and offline and can influence the image of a company.

3. Creating personas: from the rich picture of the different saved social profiles the researcher created the personas.

4. Validating personas: the consultant listened into calls at the customer support center to find out who the people are that call in a lot to validate certain assumptions regarding the personas. This was mainly done, since it was unclear whether the online interaction correlated with the “normal” interaction.

The method was followed by deeper contextual enquiries in people’s homes. This was done to understand their lifestyle and see if there was a big gap between online research and offline research.

The outcomes were largely in line, yet the online personas were amplified.

Results The outcomes (personas) were more robust than interviewing ten people face to face, since it not only contained online, but also offline interactions with the company.

Reflection  It is a quick and cheap method. You can easily scroll through 40 profiles in one day. By saving the profile links it is easy also to show examples to clients and make the personas come to live.

Do keep in mind that the personas are not meant to reflect real people.

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

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Privacy concerns might play a role in the future. At this point it was not unethical, because people choose to open up their profile. In the future this will change and people will become more and more private, so it might be more difficult to see it. But perhaps then you can also look at Instagram, because it is all visual and public, which is truly insightful for digital ethnography.

Use of data analysis tools. Sentiment analysis might be used in the future, but at the moment these tools leave out too much context and human emotion, so that the profiles that are generated are not sufficient enough to provide real insights into customer needs.

3.5. Customer journey mapping About the method Customer journey mapping is used to understand how customers currently use a product or experience a service by mapping the different stages, emotions and tools used in these stages. A customer journey starts with the customer experience (the front office) and an organization can later add their activities (the back office) to show how they add value or could improve. Important for a customer journey map is that it is developed by a set of customers and not by the organization on its own. It is important to map the customer journey from a customer perspective and not only the customer journey related to your organization, otherwise you might miss out on other touchpoints were you might act upon(Roscam Abbing, 2010).

The case Situation A Dutch company was investigating the future of mobility and how they could play a role in the rapidly changing demands of customers in the field of mobility. The company knew that mobility would provide huge challenges in the future due to urbanization and a move from owned vehicles to shared and autonomous vehicles. After a thorough market and trend analysis the client required a thorough and more qualitative understanding of the current and future problems and needs in multi-modal mobility.

Goal of the customer journey mapping The goal of the customer journey mapping is to understand how people currently travel; how they plan, make decisions, arrange transportation means and experience certain types of transportation. Mapping the customer journey of multi-modal and complex travels was the starting point for seeing where a new mobility service could provide value and how.

Process The customer journey mapping was performed over 20 times and each of the customers was asked to think about a complex and multi-modal trip they made recently. During the sessions the customers followed these steps: 1. Drawing the trip from the moment of deciding that you wanted to make the trip until you arrive at the destination. The participants were provided with a customer journey template and icons.

2. Next step was to map the emotions with each of the stages in the trip 3. The customer journey was then presented to the interviewers who asked open questions to first understand the trip and why certain decisions were made and where they would like to improve the situation.

After each interview the interviewer and observers summarized the findings and adjusted the questions for the next customer to find out whether certain situations were unique or more common.

Results The result of the different customer journey maps led to being able to define three different types of journey makers that each display different behavior, needs and goals when making a journey. During the development of the new mobility service these three journey makers were the basis for testing certain functionalities.

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Reflection A couple of learnings were shared by the consultants performing the customer journey mapping:  



Force yourself to learn (at least) three new things from each interview as this will help you to keep an open mind In the analysis you have to make room for both unique and common events as the unique events (that are not confirmed by all customers) can provide you with interesting and innovative thoughts Be a customer yourself and start looking as you’re travelling as a customer journey; try out new travel modes and note your findings. Also have a look, while travelling, at the behavior of other travelers.

3.6. Context mapping About the method Context mapping is a customer centric method that involves the customer as the “expert on his or her experience”. It helps to understand different perspective and map the total context in which a product or experience takes place. Generative tools are used to let the customer express their own experience with a product or service (Sleeswijk Visser et al, 2005).

The case Situation A refugee organization in the Netherlands currently has a platform that matches refugees with buddies.

The organization wants to stimulate the (off-line) interaction between buddies and refugees by understanding what support they need to optimally work together. Deloitte was asked to increase the understanding of the needs of both the refugees and buddies and simultaneously to increase the usability of the platform.

Goal of the context mapping In order to improve the interaction between refugees and buddies, the refugee organization needed to gather qualitative insights on refugees through context mapping workshops. The goal of these workshops was to gain a better understanding about their needs and attitudes towards the interaction.

Process Contextmapping was chosen because it is also a method that can help overcome cultural and language barrier. Context mapping and specifically collaging (visualizing) would aid in making the dreams more clear. In working sessions the following exercises were performed with the refugees and buddies: 1. Visualize your dream with the images in front of you (i.e. “when do you feel like you belong?

When did you succeed? What is hard about this process?)

2. Presentation of the visuals by refugees to each other and buddies 3. Mapping of the ideal platform interaction by the refugees and buddies. This was done to see the differences and commonalities and was input to inform the designers for the platform.

4. Real life simulation of the outcomes and desired situation to see whether this was an improved situation.

Results The needs of both the buddies and the refugees could immediately be incorporated in a new design for the platform. As the new design was also immediately tested, it was clear for the designers what to build online and what could be left for offline interaction. Figure 9 and 10 provide some visuals on the process that was followed in the contextmapping workshops.

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Figure 9: Participants working on the collages to represent their dream

Figure 10: Explaining the dream that was drawn to the participants

Reflection  The method proved to be highly suitable to incorporate different needs. It was definitely worthwhile that immediate prioritization led to a new interaction that could be visualized and tested with a real life simulation.  The ambition was to work with 100 refugees and 100 buddies. Although it was nice to have such an impact, the same results could have been reached with less participants. On the other side the outcomes in this way were easily validated.

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4. Conclusions Applying customer focused innovation methods in practice has proven worthwhile in our Deloitte innovation practice. The effectiveness and efficiency of these methods will continue to improve if combined with quantitative research and by applying digital tools.

The case study analysis with Deloitte innovation Practioners has provided a lot of insights regarding the way that we can start using customer focused innovation methods. Valuable insights and satisfied clients have shown proof of the use of customer focused innovation methods, yet applying these methods for a first time can be a hurdle in innovation projects,. A couple of overall conclusions can be made regarding the use of customer focused innovation methods can be found below. A summary of the lessons for each of the customer focused innovation methods can be found in table 2.

Provide evidence for trust It is not easy to convince your clients of customer focused innovation methods in the discover stage as they might be more willing to come up with an idea about a solution first. It is wise to provide them with examples and stories of successful innovations that have been based on these needs and methods.

When applying these methods it helps to start small and work side by side with your client. From our experience this has always proven to be enough reason for our clients to believe in the value of customer focused innovation methods.

Make use of digital tools Digital tools cover a wide array of possibilities. In applying customer focused innovation methods one could think of using digital ethnography apps, such as EthOs, or Indeemo. Another way to make more use of digital tools is to use available data on your customers a starting point. Many times, social media channels, or apps like Move can tell us a lot about the behavior of customers. Although digital tools or online open data is a valuable starting point, this should always be validated with real life customers to make the needs tangible and come to life.

Combination with quantitative methods is a must Quantifying your findings to substantiate the needs that have been found is key in convincing your client but is also the only mean to reach enough foundation to continue your process. This foundation (or use cases as we call them) should consist of two things: 1) knowing that the problem is supported by multiple customers 2) knowing the value to be gained when resolving this problem.

For instance if you find that your customers mentioned that not knowing when or how late their train arrives gives them a lot of worries, it is good to investigate whether this is true for more customers (through for instance a survey), but (and even more worthwhile sometimes) is to think about how much pain this gives them and what they are willing to pay for a solution on this matter.

Visualize your findings This can be done in the form of a persona, a customer journey or a needs prioritization with quotes of customers. In Deloitte’s experience the client was always interested if the results were presented in a personal, story like and highly visual manner. This brings the customer to life and will provide a valuable guide in design choices to be made.

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Table 2: Conclusions for the six customer focused innovation methods in the case study analysis

Method

Key learnings

Immersive interviewing

 Perform the interviews in pairs of consultant and client  Use the customers later in the process to validate your ideas  Support the qualitative insights with quantitative use cases

Participants diaries

 Make sure your participants get time to help you in your request  Validate your “paper insights “of the participants’ diaries with real life observation  Prioritize your findings with your participants  Use digital tools, like Contextmapp

Customer ethnography

 Independent observation is key in understanding customer experience, so make sure you guard these boundaries at your client  Visually represent your experience and place your observations in context  If available use data to substantiate certain findings in occurrence and severity

Digital ethnography

 It is a quick and cheap method to gain a lot of insights, but be aware that people tend to express themselves differently online  Privacy concerns might play a role in the future  In the future sentiment analysis could help in putting together profiles, yet currently they are too much unaware of context and human emotions

Customer journey mapping

 Force yourself to learn (at least) three new things from each customer journey mapping as this will help you to keep an open mind  Make room for both unique and common events in your analysis as the unique events (that are not confirmed by all customers) can provide you with interesting and innovative thoughts  Be a customer yourself and for instance try out comparable offerings yourself

Context mapping

 Using visualization tools is worthwhile to represent dreams and ambitions, but also to overcome cultural and language barriers  Real life simulation of the desired situation based on the context mapping was worthwhile exercise to prioritize and co-design

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